This is my very first attempt at making a web page. I have no idea what it will look like so here goes.

One of my main hobbies/addictions is astrophotography. I say addiction because that is what it has become. I have spent thousands of dollars (actually, my wife got me hooked with the initial purchase of my Celestron Ultima8 in 1993) and hundreds of hours attempting to photograph the wonders of the night sky. The main reason I decided to get into photography of the heavens is that film can capture much more of the faint beauty and oh-so-subtle color that the eye just cannot detect. I will attempt to present some of my more successful results here for your enjoyment.

So...without further ado...here goes nothing.

This picture of M42 in Orion was taken at the prime focus of my Celestron Ultima8. It was taken a couple of years ago and recently scanned in with the HP Photosmart scanner. The faint line running through it is a scratch due to my lack of careful storage of the negative. I now use archival sleeves for my reasonably good negatives.
This was probably about a 10 or 15 minute exposure on Kodak Gold 400 film. I remember going up to 30 minutes on other frames, but because of the slow focal ratio of the scope (f10) all the longer exposure did was to wash out the center without getting any more of the faint outer regions. I will be reimaging this nebula with my 12.5" f6.3 Newtonian with, hopefully, much better results.